My girlfriends from college & I graduated about 10 years ago (whaaaaa? Where did the time go?) And now that we’re all married…. we need an excuse to get together every year. We went to Oklahoma State (*Go Pokes!), and most of the girls live in Oklahoma and Texas – I’m the oddball over here in Colorado. This year, we decided to get together for a girl’s weekend in hill country!, which is otherwise known as Fredricksburg, Texas.
I flew into Austin, and the girls picked me up for the drive down. They had their hearts set on BBQ so we started at The Salt Lick. Now, I understand this is some of the most famous and delicious barbecue around. This, unfortunately is wasted on me because BBQ is just not my cuisine, but I had a delicious chopped beef sandwich that was absolutely huge – everything is bigger in Texas!, so they say!
We wrapped up lunch and headed on our way to Fredericksburg. One of the girls picked out a charming Air B&B where we stayed. If you haven’t used air B&B yet, give it a shot! I’ve been very impressed the several times we’ve used it for group trips!
Dinner/Drinks on Friday was at a local restaurant & brewery – Altstadt Brewery – We made a reservation for 8:15pm as we’d gotten into town around 5. This was a mistake. This place closes at 9, and was practically empty by the time we arrived for our reservation! Our server was particularly patient and great, but he was the only one of the staff that didn’t seem frustrated by our presence… I had a large pretzel, and a beer flight. This was plenty for Friday because there was wine on the way!
Now, Saturday was our big day! The 290 Wine Shuttle has buses every 10 minutes that stop along a select number of vineyards off highway 290 (where all the wine is 😉). I’m not sure if there’s any way to stop at all of the wineries and return home standing?! So we stopped at a few select ones that are known by their good reputation to kick off our girl’s weekend in hill country! Tours run from 10am-6pm. We chose to stop at 4 wineries and spent nearly 6 hours only exploring four.
But first, lunch. We stopped at this local place called Woerner’s. The menu was very eclectic! All the sandwiches & paninis looked so good it was difficult to choose. I went with a Tuna Melt, which was amazing. I can’t wait to go back for more! The restaurant was shabby chic, and was sort of in the front room of an interior design/furniture store.
One odd thing I noticed about this town was that many of the storefronts served a dual purpose (Hair salon / Coffee Shop; Wine Bar / Retail Store) And it was everywhere! This was one of the little vignettes inside Woerner’s – Yes, our lunch spot!
Baron’s Creek Vineyards- Stop #1 called for a tasting and some Rose! We had to wait to do a tasting, so of course, we went for the bottle…. Loved tasting the wines here, they offer a White/Light tasting and a Red Tasting. I’m the oddball out that got the lighter tasting, which was awesome. Of the wineries we visited, this one was the priciest tasting, but the grape juice was definitely worth the squeeze! 😉
Becker Vineyards – Stop #2 – Offers free tours! We learned so much from our guide about how they make wine (white and rose and red, oh my!), why & how they barrel age, and for how long! Some of them are over 2 years. If you live in Texas, you can find many of these wines locally. 🙂
Messina Hof Winery – Stop #3 – They have a Prosecco flight here which I would highly recommend! Check out my instagram for the boomerang video (Hey, we were winding down for the afternoon, so the photos became fewer & fewer!)
Fiesta Winery – Stop #4 – Such a fun concept, though I wish we had gotten here earlier in the day! The names of their wine and the artwork is so clever. I had a special rose, and tasted a sweet watermelon wine, which was delicious, but a little too sweet for your girl!
We were starrrrving after our day of drinking and went to “the best Mexican place in town”. Not bad, as I’m always on the lookout for good Tex Mex. (Can I have everything smothered in cheese?) Hondo’s on Main
Believe it or not, we were pretty exhausted after our day of drinking so we headed back and hot tubbed it up for the rest of the night. We had an early morning and several of us had a long drive home, so we kept Saturday night relatively calm!
Sunday was time to get up and move out. Most of the girls had quite a few hours to drive home, and so we stopped over for brunch at Rathskeller Restaurant. I had a half order of biscuits & gravy which was plenty! All those restaurant portions are too big anyway! As we were leaving, I noticed that it’s actually into (or next to) the basement of the former town hospital. There’s so much crazy history here!
So what did I miss? Where else would you have gone? And if you have extra time in this part of the world, take some time to peek around Austin, TX if you’ve never been.
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